Generally, readers have a negative idea of the Exile. Psalm 137 has
fuelled the idea that this was a time of sorrow and despair. This image of
the Exile influenced, for instance, Luther's ideas on the Babylonian
Captivity of the Church. The four essays in this volume deconstruct and
reconstruct this image. Bob Becking tries to recreate a history of the
exile. On the basis of the available evidence, this could be no more than a
fragmented history, nevertheless showing that the fate of the exiles was not
as bad as often supposed. Anne Mareike Wetter reveals that the biblical
image of exile is multi-facetted. She shows how a tradition of a people tied
to their God-given land was challenged by the reality of foreign occupation.
And how that people eventually succeeded in translating this experience,
appropriating them through a transformation into a counter-tradition that
enabled them to cope with the new situation, without breaking entirely with
their cultural and religious heritage. Jewish ideas on Exile are discussed by
Wilfred van der Poll. He concentrates on the use of the concept of galut,
which refers to the paradigmatic and identity-shaping function of the
dispersion of the people of Israel and showed that the exile in Jewish
thinking had become a permanent reality up until the present day. From the
perspective of intertextual reading, Alex Cannegieter discusses four texts
of varying ages and background - Augustine, Petrarch, Luther, and a Dutch
sermon held after the end of the Second World War. She explores the ways
authors chose biblical texts to appropriate them a new context, thereby
changing the meaning of the new, as well as the source texts.

Carmichael, C.:

Sex & Religion in the Bible

Yale UP, 2010, geb, 210 pp,
 44.90, ISBN: 9780300153774.

If we look to the Bible for historical accounts of ancient life, we make
a profound error. So contends Calum Carmichael in this original and incisive
reading of some of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament's most famous
narratives. Sifting through the imaginative layers of these texts with an
uncanny sensitivity and a panoptic critical eye, he unearths patterns
connecting disparate passages, providing fascinating insights into how ideas
were expressed, received, and transformed in the ancient Near East. Rather
than attempting a historical reconstruction, Carmichael brilliantly reveals
the profound creativity of the biblical authors. Ranging from Jacob's
encounter with Leah to the marriage at Cana to Jesus' encounter with the
woman at the well, these readings demonstrate the remarkable subtlety and
sophistication of the biblical views on marriage, sexuality, fertility,
impurity, creation, and love. In doing so, they also make a compelling case
for the integral link between sexual morality and Israelite identity.

In a perplexing passage from the "Gospel of John", Jesus is
likened to the most reviled creature in Christian symbology: the snake.
Attempting to understand how the Fourth Evangelist could have made such a
surprising analogy, James H. Charlesworth has spent nearly a decade combing
through the vast array of references to serpents in the ancient world - from
the Bible and other religious texts to ancient statuary and jewelry.
Charlesworth has arrived at a surprising conclusion: not only was the
serpent a widespread symbol throughout the world, but its meanings were both
subtle and varied. In fact, the serpent of ancient times was more often
associated with positive attributes like healing and eternal life than it
was with negative meanings.This pathbreaking book explores in plentiful
detail the symbol of the serpent from 40,000 BCE to the present, and from
diverse regions in the world. In doing so it emphasizes the creativity of
the biblical authors' use of symbols and argues that we must today reexamine
our own archetypal conceptions with comparable creativity.

In "Crown of Aleppo", Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider tell
the incredible story of the survival, against all odds, of the Aleppo Codex
- one of the most authoritative and accurate traditional Masoretic texts of
the Bible. Completed circa 939 in Tiberias, the "Crown" was
created by exacting Tiberian scribes who copied the entire Bible into book
form, adding annotations, vowel and cantillation marks, and precise
commentary. Praised by Torah scholars for centuries after its writing, the
"Crown" passed through history until the 15th century when it was
housed in the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria. When the synagogue was
burned in the 1947 pogrom, the codex was thought to be destroyed, lost
forever. That is where its great mystery begins. Miraculously, a significant
portion of the Crown of Aleppo survived the fire and was smuggled from the
synagogue ruins to an unknown location-presumably within the Aleppan Jewish
community. Ten years later, the surviving pages of the codex were secretly
brought to Israel and finally moved to their current location in the Israel
Museum in Jerusalem. This wonderfully rich book contains over 50 rare
photographs and maps, some in full color, including those of the Aleppo
Codex, the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, and of the people who played a part in
its rescue. The history and dramatic rescue of the oldest Hebrew Bible in
book form.

Israelite religion is studied overwhelmingly in historical categories, on
the basis of its so-called 'historical faith'. Myth as a category is often
explicitly denied as being present in the Bible. This volume resumes the
author's concern (already addressed in "The Mythic Mind") to recognize the importance of mythological
categories in discussing any religion, and especially Israelite religion, as
a means of redressing this perceived imbalance in this field. Having said
this, myths themselves have histories, and the first five chapters in the
present collection explore the shaping of various key biblical narratives
and themes, with a view to showing how they developed from primitive forms
into the distinctive final forms of the text. The last chapter resumes the
author's discussion of the general theoretical issues involved in the
treatment of myth in the biblical context, arguing that the concept shares
many features with history, not least in the concern for both categories to
reinforce and even shape social memories and values.

Arbel, D., J.R.C. Cosland & D. Neufeld

... And So They Went Out : The
Lives of Adam and Eve as Cultural Transformative Story

T&T Clark, 2010,
geb, 189pp,  82.50, ISBN: 9780567026798.

The process of the reshaping and transformation of the Adam and Eve
stories within the "Books of Adam and Eve" has not yet been
studied as thoroughly as it warrants. This book sets out to help redress
this imbalance. The phrase 'and so they went out' is often used to describe
the departure of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Yet it also aptly
describes the many versions of the stories of Adam and Eve as they began to
circulate about the turn of the Common Era: they too 'went out', and the
appearance of these stories in multiple versions and languages attests both
to their widespread popularity and to their ongoing appeal in the ancient
world. Nor is their appeal confined to antiquity-these stories continue to
fascinate, and the various versions of the apocryphal "Books of Adam
and Eve" have begun to command considerable attention in the academic
world. Thus far, the scholarly community has concentrated principally on the
complex tradition-history of these texts, their date, provenance and
language. But the process of the reshaping and transformation of the stories
within the "Books of Adam and Eve" has not yet been thoroughly
studied. This book sets out to redress this imbalance by focusing primarily
upon conceptual, literary, and thematic issues. By making use contemporary
critical methods such as literary-critical analysis, ritual theory, and
social-scientific taxonomy, the book explores how these stories represent a
profound transformation and reshaping of ancient attitudes to gender, body,
sexuality, sin, social hierarchies, and human aspirations.

The thirteenth volume in the series examines New Testament Apocalypitc
literature through the categories of post-colonial thought, deconstruction,
ethics, Roman social discourse, masculinization, virginity, and violence.The
volume includes contributions by David L. Barr, Mary Ann Beavis, Greg Carey,
Adela Yarbro Collins, Lynn R. Huber, Catherine Keller, John Marshall,
Stephen Moore, Jorunn Okland, Hanna Stenstrom, Pamela Thimmes, and Carolyn
Vander Stichele. There is an introduction by the editor and a comprehensive
bibliography.

Rossano, B.

Maria Magdalena. Een vrouw met vele
gezichten

Davidsfonds,
2010, pap, 168p,  27.50, ISBN: 9789058266835.

(Kerk-) Geschiedenis

Aldhouse-Green, M.

Caesars Druids. Story of an Ancient Priesthood

Yale UP,
2010, geb, 338 pp,  32.50, ISBN: 9780300124422.

Ancient chroniclers, including Julius Caesar himself, made the Druids and
their sacred rituals infamous throughout the Western world. But in fact, as
Miranda Aldhouse-Green shows in this fascinating book, the Druids'
day-to-day lives were far less lurid and much more significant. Exploring
the various roles that Druids played in British and Gallic society during
the first centuries B.C. and A.D. - not just as priests but as judges,
healers, scientists, and power brokers - Aldhouse-Green argues that they
were a highly complex, intellectual, and sophisticated group whose influence
transcended religion and reached into the realms of secular power and
politics. With deep analysis, fresh interpretations, and critical
discussions, she gives the Druids a voice that resonates in our own time.

Budin, S.L.

The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity

Cambridge, 2010,
pap, 366pp,  26.90, ISBN: 9780521178044.

Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a
person's body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted
to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering
the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the
early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have
traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually
have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually
invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Contrary to
many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has
nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent,
Oriental 'Other'. Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more
than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty
methodology.

Evans, C. (ed.)

Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus

Routledge, 2008/2010,
pap, 732 pp,  53.00, ISBN: 9780415880886.

This Encyclopedia brings together the vast array of historical research
into the reality of the man, the teachings, the acts, and the events
ascribed to him that have served as the foundational story of one of the
world's central religions. This kind of historiography is not biography. The
historical study of the Jesus stories and the transmission of these stories
through time have been of seminal importance to historians of religion.
Critical historical examination has provided a way for scholars of
Christianity for centuries to analyze the roots of legend and religion in a
way that allows scholars an escape from the confines of dogma, belief, and
theological interpretation. In recent years, historical Jesus studies have
opened up important discussions concerning anti-Semitism and early
Christianity and the political and ideological filtering of the Jesus story
of early Christianity through the Roman empire and beyond. Entries will
cover the classical studies that initiated the new historiography, the
theoretical discussions about authenticating the historical record, the
examination of sources that have led to the western understanding of Jesus'
teachings and disseminated myth of the events concerning Jesus' birth and
death. Subject areas covered in this title include: the history of the
historical study of the New Testament - major contributors and their works;
theoretical issues and concepts; methodologies and criteria; historical
genres and rhetorical styles in the story of Jesus; historical and
rhetorical context of martyrdom and messianism; historical teachings of
Jesus; teachings within historical context of ethics; titles of Jesus;
historical events in the life of Jesus; historical figures in the life of
Jesus; historical use of Biblical figures referenced in the Gospels; places
and regions; institutions; and, the history of the New Testament within the
culture, politics, and law of the Roman Empire.

"Augustine's Confessions" is a text that seduces. But how often
do its readers respond in kind? Here three scholars who share a
long-standing fascination with sexuality and Christian discourse attempt
just that. Where prior interpreters have been inclined either to defend or
to criticize Augustine's views, Virginia Burrus, Mark Jordan, and Karmen
MacKendrick set out both to seduce and to be seduced by his text. Often
ambivalent but always passionately engaged, their readings of the
Confessions center on four sets of intertwined themes - secrecy and
confession, asceticism and eroticism, constraint and freedom, and time and
eternity.

In the late medieval era, pain could be a symbol of holiness, disease,
sin, or truth. It could be encouragement to lead a moral life, a punishment
for wrongdoing, or a method of healing. Exploring the varied depictions and
descriptions of pain - from martyrdom narratives to practices of torture and
surgery - "The Modulated Scream" attempts to decode this culture
of suffering in the Middle Ages. Esther Cohen brings to life the cacophony
of howls emerging from the written record of physicians, torturers,
theologians, and mystics. In considering how people understood suffering,
explained it, and meted it out, Cohen discovers that pain was imbued with
multiple meanings. While interpreting pain was the province only of the
rarified elite, harnessing pain for religious, moral, legal, and social
purposes was a practice that pervaded all classes of medieval life. In the
overlap of these contradictory attitudes about what pain was for - how it
was to be understood and who should use it - Cohen reveals the distinct and
often conflicting cultural traditions and practices of late medieval
Europeans. Ambitious and wide-ranging, "The Modulated Scream" is
intellectual history at its most acute.

The dawn of print was a major turning point in the early modern world. It
rescued ancient learning from obscurity, transformed knowledge of the
natural and physical world, and brought the thrill of book ownership to the
masses. But, as Andrew Pettegree reveals, the story of the post-Gutenberg
world was rather more complicated than we have often come to believe.
"The Book in the Renaissance" reconstructs the first 150 years of
the world of print, exploring the complex web of religious, economic and
cultural concerns surrounding the printed word. From its very beginnings,
the printed book had to straddle financial and religious imperatives, as
well as the very different requirements and constraints of the many
countries who embraced it, and, as Pettegree argues, the process was far
from a runaway success. More than ideas, the success or failure of books
depended upon patrons and markets, precarious strategies and the thwarting
of piracy, and the ebb and flow of popular demand. Pettegree crafts an
authoritative, lucid, and truly pioneering work of cultural history about a
major development in the evolution of European society.

Dramatically physically deformed children and animals were a source of
fascination and fear - though seldom pity - in early modern Europe.
Notorious cases include the 1495 conjoined twins of Worms, the Monk Calf of
1523, and a seven-headed baby born in Eusrisgo in 1573. This study is an
examination of printed representations of monstrous births in
German-speaking Europe from the end of the fifteenth century and through the
sixteenth century, beginning with a seminal series of broadsheets from the
late 1490s by humanist Sebastian Brant, and including prints by Albrecht
Durer and Hans Burgkmair.In the sixteenth century these births were of
particular importance in German-speaking areas that were caught up in the
religious conflicts of the Reformation and early Counter-Reformation. While
interest flared periodically in France, the Netherlands, and Italy, the most
sustained and voluminous publications emerged from German regions. During
this period intellectual and theological debates, popular belief and visual
culture reflected a preoccupation with phenomena that were simultaneously
natural and unnatural, including showers of blood, comets and other strange
apparitions in the sky, and - the topic of this study - monstrous births.

Wiesner-Hanks, M.

Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World.
Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice

Routledge, 2000/10, pap, 352p, 
29.90, ISBN: 9780415491891.

This book surveys the ways in which Christian ideas and institutions
shaped sexual norms and conduct from the time of Luther and Columbus to that
of Thomas Jefferson. This second edition has been fully updated to reflect
new scholarship, with expanded coverage of many of the key issues,
particularly in areas outside of Europe.

Buchwald, J.Z. & D.G. Josefowicz:

The Zodiac of Paris. How an Improbable
Controversy over an Ancient Egyptian Artifact Provoked a Modern Debate
between Religion and Science

Princeton UP, 2010, geb, 428 pp,  34.50,
ISBN: 9780691145761.

The Dendera zodiac - an ancient bas-relief temple ceiling adorned with
mysterious symbols of the stars and planets - was first discovered by the
French during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and quickly provoked a
controversy between scientists and theologians. Brought to Paris in 1821 and
ultimately installed in the Louvre, where it can still be seen today, the
zodiac appeared to depict the nighttime sky from a time predating the
Biblical creation, and therefore cast doubt on religious truth. "The
Zodiac of Paris" tells the story of this incredible archeological find
and its unlikely role in the fierce disputes over science and faith in
Napoleonic and Restoration France. The book unfolds against the turbulence
of the French Revolution, Napoleon's breathtaking rise and fall, and the
restoration of the Bourbons to the throne. Drawing on newspapers, journals,
diaries, pamphlets, and other documentary evidence, Jed Buchwald and Diane
Greco Josefowicz show how scientists and intellectuals seized upon the
zodiac to discredit Christianity, and how this drew furious responses from
conservatives and sparked debates about the merits of scientific calculation
as a source of knowledge about the past. The ideological battles would rage
until the thoroughly antireligious Jean-Francois Champollion unlocked the
secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs - and of the zodiac itself. Champollion
would prove the religious reactionaries right, but for all the wrong
reasons. "The Zodiac of Paris" brings Napoleonic and Restoration
France vividly to life, revealing the lengths to which scientists,
intellectuals, theologians, and conservatives went to use the ancient past
for modern purposes.

Hunt, L. , M.C. Jacob & W. Mijnhardt

The Book that Changed Europe :
Picart & Bernards Religious Ceremonies of the World

Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the
world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across
Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand
Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book
trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could
be considered on equal terms. Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and
publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced "The Religious Ceremonies and
Customs of All the Peoples of the World", which appeared in the first
of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative
perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the
peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and
assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a
resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but
without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine
literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza. Ceremonies and
Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending
religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western
consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and
Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it
shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

Nelson, E.:

The Hebrew Republic. Jewish Sources and the Transformation of
European Political Thought

Belknap Press, 2010, geb, 229 pp,  27.50, ISBN: 9780674050587.

According to a commonplace narrative, the rise of modern political
thought in the West resulted from secularizationthe exclusion of
religious arguments from political discourse. But in this pathbreaking work,
Eric Nelson argues that this familiar story is wrong. Instead, he
contends, political thought in early-modern Europe became less, not more,
secular with time, and it was the Christian encounter with Hebrew sources
that provoked this radical transformation.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Christian scholars began
to regard the Hebrew Bible as a political constitution designed by God for
the children of Israel. Newly available rabbinic materials became
authoritative guides to the institutions and practices of the perfect
republic. This thinking resulted in a sweeping reorientation of political
commitments. In the books central chapters, Nelson identifies three
transformative claims introduced into European political theory by the
Hebrew revival: the argument that republics are the only legitimate regimes;
the idea that the state should coercively maintain an egalitarian
distribution of property; and the belief that a godly republic would
tolerate religious diversity. One major consequence of Nelsons work is
that the revolutionary politics of John Milton, James Harrington, and Thomas
Hobbes appear in a brand-new light.